(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for producing a classifier for recognizing an obstacle which may automatically produce the classifier for classifying an obstacle from data measured through a laser sensor or a radar sensor.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Many automobile accidents are caused today by driver error (e.g., 16%) and the delay of discovering an accident factor (e.g., 50%) and active safety techniques including accident avoidance, preventative safety, collision safety, and the like may contribute significantly to the reduction of traffic accidents. In particular, a technique of recognizing a vehicle obstacle may be needed to reduce the risk of vehicle accidents while driving by actively predicting and detecting an obstacle while driving a vehicle.
A pure passive protection system may be a shock absorption technique such as making a front surface of the vehicle smooth or ensuring a modifiable space between an engine and a hood. A collision operation protection system may better absorb energy generated upon a collision by redesigning a vehicular hood. This design may include an actuator which is actuated by sensing a collision moment between a pedestrian and the vehicle. An active protection system may be a method of reducing the risk or controlling an emergency brake assistance function using an active safety system such as an electronic stability control (ESC) in an emergency situation. A preventative protection system may be a technique preventing the collision accident between the vehicle and the pedestrian in advance by distinguishing the pedestrian from various other obstacles on a road by using sensors such as a radar or a laser scanner and a camera and actuating a safety system such as an active brake system.
According to a classification of various protection systems based on traffic accident data in e.g., the European Union, reducing a braking distance using the preventative protection system may be most effective in protecting a pedestrian. In particular, to assure strong actuation of a pedestrian protection system, it may be important to classify the type (e.g., a vehicle, a bicycle, a pedestrian, a structure, and the like) of the obstacle by recognizing the obstacle that may approach the vehicle.
The existing front obstacle recognition systems limit a recognition target to a vehicle by restraining an actuation environment to a driveway. Accordingly, recognizing a predetermined obstacle in addition to the vehicle may involve two steps.
The first step is the extension of a recognition range. For example, the pedestrian may be smaller and slower than the vehicle. Therefore, to recognize the obstacle, a signal must be reviewed as an obstacle candidate in a vehicle recognition system. In other words, the reliability and the characteristic of the sensor serve as key elements in recognition performance.
The second step may be the classification of the type of detected obstacle. In recent years, the pedestrian protection system has reflected the position of a front obstacle and the type of the obstacle to the controller of the system. In other words, when the front obstacle is a pedestrian, is the system may be designed to actively warn and avoid the front obstacle. Accordingly, the classification of the type of front obstacle may be required to actively protect the pedestrian while decreasing driver interference with the collision avoidance system.
Moreover, the present invention proposes an obstacle detecting method using only a distance measurement sensor (the radar and the laser scanner) and a new recognition technique capable of determining the type of the obstacle to perform the two steps as described above. The method may include a database in which distance information of an object and a pattern characteristic of a region are extracted and thereafter, accumulated.
FIG. 1 is an exemplary diagram illustrating measurement ranges of various sensors for recognizing an obstacle. Among the measurement sensors, the radar sensor may be large in length but small in width and the laser sensor may be large in width but small in length. A video sensor may perform an intermediate role between the sensors, but it may be time extensive to analyze the obstacle through an actual image.
Therefore, a technique may be needed, which can increase both time and accuracy of recognition by designing and mounting a classifier with substantially high accuracy, separating the obstacle while using the laser or the radar sensor as the distance measurement sensor.
The description provided above as a related art of the present invention is just for helping in understanding the background of the present invention and should not be construed as being included in the related art known by those skilled in the art.